Dunces with dollars

The Financial Services Authority says understanding is being held back "by the very low basic skill levels in numeracy and literacy of many adults".

A survey published in November found that nearly seven million adults (21 per cent of the adult population) had numeracy skills at "entry level 2 or below" - lower than expected of 11-year-olds.

Examples of financial literacy skills include understanding monetary values presented in different formats, and making value-for-money judgments of different products, which may involve comparing percentages and understanding graphs.

The survey assessed skills across a range of topics. The "entry level 2 or below" group did best on questions about money, but only half the group answered questions about charts and tables correctly and only a fifth got the right answers to questions about fractions, proportions and percentages.

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